Ben Granger I may as well declare my stance at the outset. Half Man Half Biscuit are Britain’s most under-rated band, and their singer/writer Nigel Blackwell is not only one of the land’s finest humourists and satirists, but also a chronicler of the tawdriness of modern British life whose vision is shot through with true […]
The White Stripes : Get Behind Me Satan
Ben Granger They may have been going for years beforehand but it was in 2001 that weirdo-duo The White Stripes became known to the world, arriving in fine feral style with their supercharged brand of primeval punk blues. They were hyped to the max with their red and white uniforms and carefully contrived sister/brother/lover cartoon […]
Ron Callari, Jack Pittman: Uncle Dubya’s Jihad Jamboree
Ben Granger It’s so very easy to get bored of the endless invective directed at the Bush White House. By turns bilious and sniggering, it’s all so very superior isn`t it? It’s just so boring and obvious. Thomas Frank’s What`s The Matter With Kansas? showed recently that the Republicans have a key weapon to solidify […]
Kevin O’Hara – …Tell Someone?
Ben Granger The web has done wonders for democratising freedom of expression, with information more easily shared than ever before. When it comes to the old-fashioned medium of books however, a few major publishing houses continue their stranglehold on the market. It’s always good therefore to see a smaller indie publisher making an impact. …Tell […]
Julie Burchill: Sugar Rush: Hurricane Julie
Ben Granger collides with Julie Burchill over several bottles of wine to seek out the dreadful truth on chavs, Stalin, Ariel Sharon and Morrissey “Never meet your heroes; they always disappoint” runs the old saying. Invited from my humble Lancastrian abode down to the Brighton realm of the greatest shit-stirring iconic hack of our […]
Charlie Brooker: Screen Burn
Ben Granger I judge newspaper TV reviewers by a very high standard indeed. Why the hell shouldn’t I? Let’s face it, this is the dream job any human being can have. Sitting, scratching your mardy arse whilst staring out the flickers that would bombard your face anyway and getting paid for it. Jesus! They have […]
Jason Burke – Al Qaeda
Ben Granger The most striking fact Jason Burke hammers through time and again in this meticulous and comprehensive study is that “Al Qaeda” does not exist. Or at least, “Al Qaeda” the organised terrorist group, cohesive and complete we hear of in the media doesn’t. I like Spooks as much as anyone, but I fear […]
Julie Burchill – Sugar Rush
Ben Granger Julie Burchill: donchajusluver??!! Well, yes, actually. There once was a time when I agreed with all my Graun reading friends “that bigoted bitch” should be humanely shot, but it seems a very long while ago now. My obsession with her venomous vitriol went from fascinated horror to perverse admiration in the time it […]
Dave Hann, Steve Tilzey : No Retreat : Street Fighting Men
Ben Granger talks to Dave Hann and Steve Tilzey, authors of No Retreat, a punchy account of their days fighting neo-Nazis in the North-West of England Back in the late 70s Manchester was a stronghold of Britain’s premier far-right party, the National Front. As factories and communities went down they went up, recruiting at pubs […]
John Kennedy Toole – A Confederacy Of Dunces
Ben Granger As the ghosts of Ian Curtis and Kurt Cobain will attest, nothing sells like the untimely suicide of a young talent. Dunces was written in 1967. Its failure to be published contributed to Toole’s suicide in 1969 at the age of 32. It lay lost until his mother forced it on publisher Walker […]
Morrissey : You Are The Quarry
Ben Granger And so to the comeback of the year. Seven years without a contract, self-exiled to LA, the avatar of the awkward fled his homeland after a bitter divorce with the UK music press, a separation all the more sour because the ardour was once so strong. The eternal chronicler of the downtrodden seemed […]
Mike Duff – Low Life
Ben Granger Low Life looks at one low down and sleazy day in the life of Ronald “Rooftop” Rafferty, North Mancunian. Rafferty got his nickname not for his contributions to architecture but for one example of his many, constant and varied forays into the world of two-bit desperate criminality. Rooftop is a 100% proof scally, […]
Franz Ferdinand : Franz Ferdinand
Ben Granger Just because every music critic in the land suddenly simultaneously drools like a sick puppy over some hot new things, it doesn’t mean said things are actually that good. The slavish adulation these uber-foppish young Glaswegians are getting across the board is off-putting because it has so many bad precedents. Music mags, broadsheets, […]
Al Franken – Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them
Ben Granger Four years back book publishers thought there was more chance of a Leo Sayer revival than a mass upsurge in popular political book sales. Then a hard-right East Coast rich kid posing as a Western cowboy steals an election and a polarizing red-raw societal nerve is struck. People who don’t like Dubya really […]
Mark Simpson – Saint Morrissey
Ben Granger This book is not for people who’ve never, even briefly, fallen under Morrissey’s spell. Don’t bother; it’ll only convince you further of the psycho-obsessive nature of Morrissey fans in general and the author in particular. Don’t bother either if you’re looking for new facts about The Smiths or Morrissey, anything to do with […]
The Fall: Mick Middles – Hip Priest: The Story of Mark E. Smith and The Fall: Simon Ford
Ben Granger weighs up two attempts to explain the wonderful and frightening world of The Fall These two new books are a timely reminder of a group whose shocking individuality has been obscured by virtue of their sheer longevity. A reminder this band is not that nauseatingly cosy term "an institution", but a force distending […]
